> The Sum of its Parts

This sketch is apparently composed of many random blotches scattered throughout a circle. Yet, there is meaning in this drawing.

If you look attentively, you will see the neck and head of a giraffe. Suddenly, a flash of understanding will rush into your awareness. At this moment, the meaning of each blotch in this drawing is grasped.

Here, it is not the blotches themselves that generate this meaning. Rather, the meaning is derived from the whole becoming more than the sum of its parts. The meaning here lies within the picture, but it is not the picture itself. What we are seeing is not actually on the paper, even though it appears to be there.

The meaning is an additional dimension to the lines on the paper. This dimension is composed of relationships between parts, and the phenomenon that comes when an arrangement of elements suddenly coalesce to become one coordinated whole.

When we experience moments of meaning through coordinated organization, we are exercising our natural ability to perceive with our conscious awareness. At the moment we become aware of the giraffe, an understanding occurs to us that is just as natural as the beating of our hearts.

This burst of understanding can be equally experienced with anything and everything in nature. And in this way, we may learn from nature and gain wisdom directly from the earth itself.